Italian Vogue Editor's note.

"Art is a term we apply to many "professions" in fashion to the extent of making it sound less valuable and depriving it of its original meaning.
An artist is someone who is inventive, creates, or at least doesn't get much involved in practical matters, and certainly is not interested in the commercial aspect of his works.
Usually, instead, a designer's ultimate goal is to sell his designs. True satisfaction comes from seeing people on the streets, men and women, wearing your designs.
To an artist is satisfactory to see his paintings, sculptures or installations displayed in a museum or a famous gallery, or in a private collection. Unique pieces, or at the most, as it happens with photographs, in a limited edition.
Yet art-director, art-buyer, make-up art(ist), art department, artist (designer or stylist), are some of the work titles in which the word "art" appears.
This doesn't mean they don't have an artistic value, as most people who are successful in such fields are very creative. However, the term "art" has been abundantly over-used, thus creating a general confusion.
Fashion is fashion, art is art. The two fields might affect each other, but this doesn't mean they have the same value. Art is not a synonym for fashion.
It's even more confusing in fashion schools or institutes, where an aspiring designer is thought of as an artist, a graphic designer becomes an art-director, a stylist an art buyer, and a make-up artist as someone capable of transforming a face.
It becomes then difficult to understand that by graduating or receiving a diploma you don't automatically become an artist, but you are starting a career in which you will go places thanks to your artistic talent as well as the capacity to transform your creativity into something tangible.
True talents will find their way if they become aware of the fact they need to deal with daily matters, the industry, production. With a sense of humility.
And only then, the "art" term will find its suitable collocation." - Franca Sozzani


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